Today's Partner Profile features Bailey Tool and Manufacturing , a company that worked to find new customers for the design and manufacturing skills and capabilities that the company had developed for the auto industry, and that search moved company focus from cars to superconducting cavities.
A Small Business Makes the Leap from Auto Parts to Accelerator Components
NEWPORT NEWS, VA—When the auto market crashed in 2008, Bailey Tool and Manufacturing, worked to find new customers for the design and manufacturing skills and capabilities that the company had developed, and that search moved the company from focusing on cars to superconducting cavities. Through partnerships with national labs like Fermilab and Jefferson Lab, Bailey Tool has translated its expertise in machining and advanced materials to some of the most advanced scientific facilities in our nation.
Since it first received funding through the Small Business Vouchers program, a special outreach program at the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy designed to help small companies gain access to the some of the nation's top government labs, Bailey Tool has been working at improving performance and reducing costs of accelerators like Jefferson Lab’s Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility. “I first met John Buttles, the owner of Bailey Tool and Manufacturing, at a LCWS12 (Future Linear Collider Workshop) and we have been collaborating since about 2014,” says Bob Rimmer, Director of the SRF Institute. “Our first successful collaboration was a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) on seamless cavity fabrication by hydroforming. Since then Jefferson Lab and Bailey Tool have collaborated on several proposals for projects like industrialized e-beam for wastewater treatment and other applications however, these have not yet found funding support. Most recently, Bailey won a SBIR phase I to make special hydroformed bellows for accelerator applications which Jefferson Lab is supporting.
“Working on these cutting edge accelerator components is a perfect extension and application of our expertise developed over years in advanced materials and manufacturing,” says Buttles. “We look forward to continuing and building on our close collaborations with Jefferson Lab as well as the other national labs, which provide a great opportunity for our company as a business, but as a partner in our nation’s scientific enterprise and leadership.”
For more Information on Bailey Tool, contact Buttles at jbuttles@baileytool.com
Contact: Deborah Dowd, Jefferson Lab Communications Office, 757-269-7180, dowd@jlab.org